In my attempt to be more eco-friendly and reduce my carbon footprint, I’ve done the following:

–I kick-scooter to work

–Use a coffee mug (when possible)

–Turn off appliances when not being used

–Take showers only twice a week (I’m kidding)

–And just came out with a book (only available in digital format) discussing Fortune 1000 companies who have embraced Green programs

Although the title is a bit uninspired (Vault Guide to Green Programs), I’m actually proud of its content. Hopefully, other companies will read this guide and be challenged to implement similar programs. Also, it will be a great resource for employees as they choose employers who share similar values when it comes to practices that impact our environment.

The book has gotten some press, and I’ll be doing some interviews in the coming days. Trust me when I say I am no green expert … but I guess it’s my little way of contributing.

Went to Lucas’ first birthday party near the Hippo Park in Riverside. The Ro’s really knew how to throw a party as it seemed like the whole Upper West Side decided to show up. Good times, good mac & cheese and such great parents for an awesome little boy.

Nice park, even better shade

Celebrated my dear sister’s b-day, where we hit the driving range at Chelsea Pier, ate at an awesome restaurant, Anthos, and then had drinks at the Stone Rose in the Time Warner building. Beautiful view and it was fun hanging out with my sister and her friends.

Anti-Tiger

Before the meal …

View from Stone Rose

The next day, went to church and then drove down to Piscataway, NJ to celebrate my friend’s engagement party. It was more like a block party as there were probably about 150 people there to show appreciation to Shane & Kimiko. The food was awesome, ranging from ribs to crabs to honey wings to pork & beans to cornbread … and they even provided Hoegaarden.

The lovely couple

The nice spread

The man behind the spread

Some old pals …

Sharing a laugh …

The future hubby to be

Jaden playing with a friend

By the time we got home, we were exhausted, but it was a nice way to spend 48 hours. This coming weekend is a trip to Chicago, which means of course, deep dish pizza, chili dogs, magnificent mile and some golfing.

“Hello world, we won gold medals and we’re not even in middle school!”

Anyone watching women gymnastics last night probably uttered these same three thoughts:

–How do they do that?

–I don’t understand the scoring

–The Chinese girls look like 10 year olds

I know it’s all speculation, but sometimes you have to call a skunk a skunk, and something stinks. To pour more fuel on this controversy fire, Martha Karolyi, the team coordinator of the U.S. women’s team, keeps on sharing her theories to the general public. Most recently, she noticed a tooth missing on one of the Chinese gymnast, and made the assumption that her adult tooth has yet to come in. Is that too farfetched?

Last night, as my wife and I watched the U.S. women’s team stumble and the Chinese women’s team capitalize on those miscues; I couldn’t help my wife get visibly distraught. Her observations paralleled Karolyi’s.

–“They look 10 years old.”

–“No way they hit puberty yet.”

–“There’s no curves, no sign of teen-hood.”

–“Jaden [our three-year-old son] looks more developed than some of these girls.”

The last one might be a stretch, but after finding out some of the heights and weights of these Chinese girls, it’s a close stretch. One girl is 4 foot 6 and weighs in at 68 pounds. Jaden is 3 foot 4 and weighs in at 40 pounds.

According to this NY Times article, the average height and weight of the Chinese women gymnasts are 4 foot 9 and 77 pounds. If China is not falsifying the age, then at the very least we have to look into malnourishment and health issues. This story is not dying down any time soon, especially with China getting a bad rap about the Milli Vanilli lip-synching and the refusal to discuss the current political atmosphere in China.

Here’s a reason to not like the Spain basketball team. Also, NBA players like Pau Gasol and Rudy Fernandez are on the roster and in the picture. I’m surprised this hasn’t gotten more press. Here’s the image, go to the story for more.

While I was taking a stroll during my lunch break, I saw a Brendan Fraser billboard here in Chelsea promoting the already-released Journey to the Center of the Earth. It got me thinking about his new movie that’s coming out tomorrow called, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. I haven’t seen either of those films, so my thoughts are completely unsubstantiated, but then again, these two movies probably don’t require that objective of a mind to guess its main intention: try to make some money off of a very loose storyline.

Here’s a few things I don’t get about the movies themselves, and specifically speaking, Brendan Fraser.

First, the movies. If the producers and the distribution company really wanted to make some money off of a questionable storyline, why Brendan Fraser? I know he’s got a nice jaw and he’s shown glimpses of his acting range in such classics as Encino Man and that Tarzan flick, but really? He’s a cash cow? Not only that, but their marketing stinks. The Mummy can market itself because it’s the third installment, but there’s been nothing presented to make me wonder why this movie is worth $10. Sure they have Jet Li, but he was a hot commodity about seven years ago. And Journey to the Center of the Earth—no compelling emotion comes out, not even if it’s 3-D.

Not his proudest moment …

Now, to Brendan Fraser. Why would a guy who has actually does have some acting chops (School Ties, With Honors, Crash) continue to roll out films that require nothing but a marketable face and broad shoulders? Not only that, but why be part of two movies back-to-back that seem to have the same character as the protagonist? I’m starting to wonder who his agent is. His agent must’ve called him up one day and said something along these lines:

“Hey Brendan, I’ve got a great proposition. Why not make tons of money by simply playing the same exact character for two films in a row? This might mean you might lose some acting cred and probably a good screenplay won’t come your way this year, but think about it, just a few months of screaming, punching and jumping into sand pits and voila, two fat paycheck.”

Apparently, this was an attractive offer, and who can blame Fraser … I mean, would you pass up the chance to be in a 3-D movie?

One potentially positive note is that Fraser is currently in pre-production to play Gung-Ho for a highly anticipated G.I. Joe film (caveat, same director did Mummy). If this movie’s good, all sins are forgiven… except for that Tarzan movie.

Trust me, this article isn’t some kind of grassroots promotion to get our readers on our Facebook page or to help Facebook attain more traffic (I think they’re doing fine without our help). If anything, I’m using the whole idea of Facebook to drive a point. I could have just as easily used other examples such as Myspace, YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter or whatever social network du jour that exists out there to convey this simple message: Get familiar with social networking on the Web, because if you’re lagging behind now, well, your kids are going to blow you out of the water.

Our generation was born into the inception and the growing concept of the Internet. By simple process of deduction, that would make our children the first generation to grow up completely immersed in what we know as the golden age of the Internet. If you were born circa 60’s, 70’s and early 80’s, you didn’t touch a computer until early teens, and you weren’t embracing the Internet until late teens or your twenties. We grew up looking at the computer as a pragmatic machine used for data storage, compiling file documents and processing information. Our kids are growing up looking at the computer as an outlet to their social life. We are modern, they are postmodern. In other words, we are cavemen of the Internet times.

Not sure why, but while reading the recent GQ article about Seth Rogen and his new flick, Pineapple Express, this quote from producer/director extraordinaire, Judd Apatow, made me laugh out loud.

Seth Rogen

“That’s the debate that Seth and I have been having for the last six years,” says Apatow, who does not dispute Rogen’s characterization of him as an ‘anti-pot person.’ “He thinks we’re making a pot movie, and I think we’re making an anti-pot movie. In my head, [Pineapple] is clearly a story of how pot leads to Asian gangs trying to murder you.”

Apparently a very scary Asian gang

Other stuff that’s kind of funny:

–My buddy KW was twittering, and this is what was tweeted: “Also, if someone has acne on their chest, is it called ‘chest-ne’?? And what if the person’s name is Kenny?”

Kenny Chesney

–Then I brought KW’s observation to a colleague of mine, PS, and this was his response: “At the risk of being slightly too literal … acne on the face is called acne, not facene. Acne on the neck is called acne, not neckne. So my answer to your question about acne on the chest is: no, it’s not OK. It’s an abomination.”

–Lastly, this article on Slate is written by a guy who is obviously bitter against Michael Chang’s tennis career. Still, it’s a funny take on how Chang’s rise to tennis stardom stunted his own dreams.

I discuss this in detail on the www.savvydaddy.com site (or access the direct story link here). In any case, let me give you a teaser:

I’m sure I just opened up a can of worms, but with the recent publicity surrounding the photos of the infant daughter of the “pregnant man,” I couldn’t pass this up. Not only is this story so multi-faceted in regards to specific hot button issues, but it also made me think about my defined perception of fatherhood.

Thomas Beatie, 34, is a transgender male who first entered the world as a female named Tracy Langondino. Beatie, who once competed in a Miss Teen USA Pageant while he was a woman, made the decision as an adult to legally become a man. After taking testosterone treatments and surgically removing his breasts, Beatie began life as a man. However, the complexity of this whole story leans on the fact that Beatie decided to retain his female sexual reproductive organs. Later on in his new life as a transgender male, Beatie met his wife Nancy, 46, who already had two daughters from a previous relationship.

Although they wanted children together, Nancy already had a hysterectomy done before they had met. So, in a surprise twist, Beatie underwent artificial insemination, which led to the birth of their daughter in late June. With his appearance on Oprah while pregnant, the news of the baby’s birth, and now the release of his photos to People magazine, the publicity storm has become a full-fledged hurricane.

As a dad in the traditional sense of the word, what does this story mean to me? I’ll be honest, at first I thought the story was a complete gaffe and a plagiarism of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s forgettable movie, Junior. Part of me wondered if a journalist in Oregon got duped and was reporting on a guy who just wanted to get his five minutes of fame. Well, not only did Beatie get his five minutes of fame, but he also kicked the doors of convention.

Beatie wrote an essay a few months back for The Advocate, a gay and lesbian magazine, stating, “Our situation ultimately will ask everyone to embrace the gamut of human possibility and to define for themselves what is normal.” He also added that “Wanting to have a biological child is neither a male nor female desire, but a human desire.”

I agree that I’ve always wanted kids, but never did I ever want to actually birth a child. I also had a desire to be a dad, but was under the idea that the difference between being a dad and a mom was based firmly on the fact that both have unique and distinguishable roles. Sure, you can blur the lines of who reads the bedtime stories, carries out the discipline or gives the bird and the bees talk. But can you blur the lines of who actually does the child birthing—which, last time I checked is the natural role of the mother? Or, how do you blur the lines of what differentiates a mother and a father in its most primitive form, when that which needs to be blurred defines who you are as a male and a female?

Christian Bale’s recent arrest for assault will undoubtedly bring countless papers to use headlines that will be full of intentional puns and other obvious assertions. Here are some I could envision (starting with the most rudimentary):

“The Dark Knight”

“The Dark Night”

“Christian Bale Goes Psycho”

“London Psycho”

“Battery Man”

“Bruce Wane”

“Christian Bail”

“3:10 to Prison”

“The Misogynist”

“Christian Bale Wails”

The Dark Knight grounded …

**note: the sad thing is, I wouldn’t be surprised if Fox (or another Murdoch entity) or the tabloids use these types of headlines. I don’t want credit.